


The Monster

by flippyspoon



Series: Brightonverse [10]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>O'Brien is Igor. Dreams are weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster

The laboratory was so quiet that when Dr. Thomas Barrow dropped his scalpel, the metallic clang echoed, and he jerked.  His hands were shaking and he clasped them, rubbing his palms together.  It was always so cold in the laboratory.  The chill of the coffins packed with ice to keep the bodies preserved gave the whole manor a chill, even in the upstairs bedrooms.  Thomas’s mind raced, one thought tripping over the next.

Done it!  I’ve done it!  Finally, I’ve done it!  I’ll have him again!

He straightened his crisp, white lab coat and smoothed back his hair, but a rebellious lock fell forward again over his eyes.  He pressed his fingers to the frozen steel of the operating table and gazed upon his creation as thunder cracked outside.  It had been storming all evening.  And that was good.  Things were going just as planned.

“O’Brien!”  Thomas cried.  “O’BRIEN! COME!”

Up the stairs of the basement laboratory, a door creaked as it opened and O’Brien appeared.  She had developed a hunchback since her long ago days as a lady’s maid, and she staggered down the stairs, holding a tray bearing a tumbler of scotch.

“Yes, master,” O’Brien intoned.

O’Brien was absurdly slow to come down the stairs and Thomas took the time to shut his eyes and attempt to calm down.  But he could hardly stand still.  Tonight it would be done.  After all this time and heartache, James Kent would live again.  O’Brien limped up to him and Thomas grabbed the scotch without looking and threw back a swallow.

“Is it time, master?”  O’Brien said, her eyes wide as she surveyed his nearly finished work.

Upon the operating table lay Jimmy Kent.  Or mostly Jimmy Kent.  It was his head, that was the important part.  His beautiful face was still intact though little else had been salvaged after his brutal murder at the Thirsk fair back in 1920.  But Dr. Thomas Barrow was nothing if not persistent.  He wasn’t going to let a little thing like death keep him from his love.  He’d kept Jimmy’s remains carefully preserved for eleven long years, using techniques he didn’t deign to share with the rest of the scientific world.  Why help the world anyhow, when they made his love a crime?  And why follow their simple-minded rules about not digging up graves or…murdering people for the greater good?

A year ago Thomas had finally cracked it; how to bring Jimmy back.  It had taken painstaking research and tests on animals.  He’d killed more pigs and goats and cows than he could count.  Then.  Finally.  Success.

He’d always known this venture would involve building Jimmy a new body.  It was a bloody shame that most of it had been beyond saving.  He’d only really managed to keep the thighs, the neck, and the head.  

Thomas had gathered every supply he’d need first, before the grisly deeds he knew he’d have to perform.  Then he’d set about ransacking the graveyards of Yorkshire.  He’d dug up far more fresh corpses than he needed.  The organs were easy enough.  It was the aesthetics of the thing that had taken ages.  O’Brien had teased him as he dragged her from graveyard to graveyard to graveyard.

“Master, may I ask…  If it takes you this long to pick out a left hand, how long will it take you to select a cock?”  

Thomas had blown smoke in her face at that comment.

In fact, it had taken him six months to collect all the parts.  Arms, hands, feet…those had all come from graveyards.  But then nothing was ever truly good enough.  

Nothing that was fresh anyhow.

So Thomas had taken what he needed from the living.

It started with prostitutes; young men in London who were happy to suck Thomas off for the right price (a couple for no money at all).  Thomas had happily let them.  And then, if they had the right hips, the right shoulders, the right stomach, the right chest, and finally (God save the king) the right cock, he had killed them with a quick and efficient slice across the throat.

“It’s for love,” he’d whispered in the ears of the eight beautiful boys he had murdered in the cause of Jimmy Kent.  “You must understand… It’s all for love…”

“So many dead,” O’Brien whispered, gazing around the laboratory.

“You’re point?”  Thomas muttered, as he drained the rest of his scotch.

“Nothin’,” she said.  “I just didn’t know you had it in ya.”

“He’s perfect,” Thomas said and he raised his hands and ever so slowly lay them upon Jimmy’s chest.  It was as nearly as perfect a body as Jimmy had originally possessed, even if all the parts didn’t quite match up.  Some skin tones were darker, some had freckles.  The right calf had too much hair.  At the joints of the shoulders thick wiry stitching joined the torso to two not overly muscular arms, though one had a thick curved scar above the elbow, it couldn’t be helped.  The right forearm was a little hairy too, with a dusting of ginger curls.  Contrarily, the pubic hair was thick and dark.  The hands had longer fingers.  The feet were slightly too small.  

The cock…

Well, Thomas had never had opportunity to inspect Jimmy’s cock when he’d been alive.  But he’d insisted on complimenting his creation to a rather absurd degree and killed a six-foot-three and very well endowed former sailor in a flophouse for this cock.  It had been quite a struggle.  Afterwards, Thomas had found blood in the oddest places for a week.

“He’s a monstrosity,” O’Brien finally whispered.  “It’s against God is what it is, Thomas.  Lord, I need a cigarette…”

“Quiet, woman!”  Thomas barked.  He fondled Jimmy’s nipples, his hips…  “What do I care of God?  I’m going to raise him!  And he’ll be mine!  Just as he always should have been!”

“You’re mad as a fish!”

Thomas glanced at her and blinked.  She looked quite serious, frightened even.  She’d helped him move the bodies of men he’d murdered, she’d helped him dig up the corpse of Charles Carson and Tom Branson and John Bates and William Mason for a heart, kidneys, liver, lungs…  

Now she thought him mad?

He threw his head back and laughed and it echoed in the laboratory as thunder rolled once again.  He squeezed Jimmy’s thigh, running his fingers lightly over the angry stitches that joined it to his perfectly round buttocks.  The body was very grey and cold.  At Jimmy’s temples two nodes stuck out awkwardly, the implants would bleed when he again lived.  Thomas stepped around O’Brien and grabbed the clamps connected to the generator’s cables.  He connected one to Jimmy’s left node and one to his right and rushed back over to the operating table, wanting to remain as close to Jimmy as possible.  

“Engage the lift,” Thomas said quietly.

O’Brien pulled first one lever and far above them a door in the ceiling slid open and rain poured into the laboratory.  She pulled a second lever and Thomas stepped away from table with some reluctance and threw several switches on the generator which hummed to life, lights flashing and sparks of electricity throwing the looming shadow of Thomas onto the wall.  With an angry creak, the table lifted from the floor and slowly ascended above them and up, up, up to into the rain and onto the roof where the metal rods would conduct lightning and bring his Jimmy back.

Thomas’s tremble became a shudder and they waited until lightning struck and Thomas heard a loud crackle and a bang.  The generator gave off sparks so bright, he thought it might start a fire and O’Brien cried out in fear.    Then the lightning was over and there was nothing but the violent storm and the buzz of the generator.

“Bring him down!”  Thomas shouted.  “Bring him down!”

O’Brien threw the levers and again the table descended, slowly, slowly, far too slowly, until it was resting on the floor.  Thomas darted forward, panting, his heart thudding in his chest.

“Jimmy, come back!  Please! It must have worked!  I know it must have worked!”

He waited for one dreadfully long moment and then he saw the pinky of Jimmy’s too-long left hand twitch.   It twitched and then the fingers fluttered.  Thomas gasped and O’Brien clapped a hand to her mouth.  Jimmy’s hand moved, flailing, as if searching for something to grab a hold of and then it clutched Thomas’s lab coat.

“He’s alive!”  Thomas howled.  “He’s aliiiiive!”

Jimmy slowly sat up, blinking dumbly. His beautiful mouth hung open and he turned his head, his eyes meeting Thomas’s.

“Jimmy!”  Thomas said.  He thought he’d die himself, he was so overcome with awe and joy and, perhaps, madness.  “Jimmy, do you know me!  It’s Thomas!  I’ve brought you back!  I’ve brought you back to love me!”

“Oh bloody fucking hell,” O’Brien muttered from the corner.

“Thom…as,” Jimmy croaked.

“YES!”  Thomas grasped his shoulders, wet with rain and beginning to warm.  “YES, IT’S ME!  I LOVE YOU AND I’VE BROUGHT YOU BACK!”

“Thom…as,”  Jimmy said again.

Thomas lunged forward and planted a kiss on Jimmy’s lips and rained kisses on his throat, his shoulder, his chest… “Oh yes, my darling!  We’ll be together now!  And if you should die again, I can bring you back again!  And we’ll be together forever!  Forever, my love!”

“Thom…as,” Jimmy said.  It would likely be the only thing he’d ever say, which was a shame really.  Jimmy had always been so charming in conversation.  But at least Thomas had managed to save his vocal chords so his gorgeously husky voice was intact.  “Thom…as.”  

Thomas wept and kissed Jimmy’s wrist and threw his arms around his wonderful monster.  

“Uh!”  Jimmy said.  Well, that was something.  “Uh” was an awfully good sign, Thomas thought. “UH!”

Thomas leaned back, “Is something the matter, my love?”

Jimmy ducked his head and frowning, looked down at his cock which stuck up, proudly erect.  Thomas’s eyes bugged out.  He knew he’d given to Jimmy with both hands but on this smaller body, that cock really was huge.

“Do you want something, my Jimmy?”  Thomas said, still too far gone over to the edge to convincingly be seductive.  But he didn’t think this version of Jimmy would know the difference.  Thomas reached down and stroked Jimmy’s cock.

Jimmy said, “Uh!  Thom…as!”

He came inside of three seconds, a spurt of ejaculate spattering Thomas’s lab coat as Jimmy groaned and then smiled like an idiot.

“Oh Jesus bloody Christ…”  O’Brien was whimpering over a cigarette.

“QUIET, WOMAN!” Thomas shrieked. “CAN’T YOU SEE? I’VE CREATED THE PERFECT MAN!”

 

“Gyah!”  Thomas woke with a start, sitting up in bed, his heart pounding in his chest.  “Oh…God…”

What did I do?  Oh Lord, what have I done?  Jimmy!  Jimmy’s dead and I…and I…oh God!

The dream had seemed so utterly real that even in the tranquil moonlight of his Brighton flat, Thomas thought he heard thunder and he looked around as if he might see O’Brien with a hunchback and a sparking generator and that was not to mention…

“God…”  Thomas pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.  

Beside him Jimmy stirred under the blankets, murmuring, and eventually he sat up, blinking sleepily.  “Whatsa matter?”  Jimmy said.

Thomas looked at Jimmy, still pent up from his nightmare, and he clapped his palms upon Jimmy’s cheeks.  “Let me…let me just look at you…”

“Thom…as?”  Jimmy said, slightly worried.

Thomas felt a tiny thrill of fear.  “Don’t say it like that!”

“Like what?”

Thomas ripped the blankets away.  Jimmy nearly always slept nude if it was remotely warm enough and now Thomas turned on the light and inspected Jimmy’s body.  He pressed his hands to Jimmy’s chest.  Yes, yes it was Jimmy’s chest, not anyone else’s.  He ran his hands over Jimmy’s shoulders, his arms…  No angry stitching or ginger hair.  No curved scar.  He grabbed Jimmy’s hands; his lovely squarish, slightly veiny hands, and kissed all his fingers.  

“Must’ve been some nightmare,” Jimmy said.

“You have no idea,” Thomas said.  “And it was so real.  You were dead, you were killed back at the fair in Thirsk and…and I murdered all these men to make you a body and bring you back and…  But you were a monster.  Albeit a monster with a very large cock.”

“Hey!”

“Well, no offense.  I’m just sayin’.  But God, it was so real, Jimmy.  And O’Brien was Igor and you had Bates’ lungs or somethin’ and…and you could only say my name and nothin’ else and ugh…”  He threw his arms around Jimmy and squeezed him tight.  “It was bloody awful!”

Jimmy sighed and hugged Thomas back, chuckling into his neck. “Thomas Barrow, you are never seeing that film again.”

 


End file.
